


Just

by SubwayWolf



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Brief Descriptions of Non-Con, Brutal Character Death Warning, Character Study, Choking, Complete Lack of Respect, Disney Prince Damon, First Meetings, Heavily Implied Incest - Freeform, I Swear To God This Isn't Incest, Implied Incest, Jaw-Grabbing, Kinda-Sexual Submission, Kneeling, Lessons in Respect, M/M, Murder, Name-Calling, Non-Sexual Submission, father-son bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 17:21:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2158884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SubwayWolf/pseuds/SubwayWolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The relationships in Ramsay’s life are often unstable, and he knows that it’s his fault. But he isn’t quick to admit it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Inversion

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to listen to Mark Ronson’s album Version for the tracks that the chapter titles are named for. The instrumental jazz-rock has nothing to do with this story, but listen nonetheless.

Ramsay did not have very good of a memory, but he understood that forgetting his past was natural. He had left his home in the country not long ago. Still, he found it very difficult to think of the things that had happened to him before he took his rightful place inside the Dreadfort. He sometimes felt so detached from those things that it seemed as if another man had lived that life, a life separate from his own. Ramsay felt separated from that person, as if viewing memories that were not his own or remembering a story someone had once told him. 

There were some things he remembered, however. He remembered Domeric, or small parts of him and the things he said and did. Sometimes, in the memories, Domeric was a fading, misty outline of himself. Other times he was as clear as day, so clear that Ramsay had to remind himself that his brother was dead.

When Ramsay first met Domeric, the only thought to run through his head was a dull curiosity as to if Domeric had ever killed someone. It was easy to suppose that he hadn’t. Domeric had a slim waist, groomed hair, and long fingers. There was a light in his eyes that made it fairly obvious that he had never, not in his life, watched a man die. His voice was steady, a bit dark for a young man his age, but well-learned. And Ramsay easily, perhaps instinctively, hated him.

Ramsay could not recall every detail of the day they met, but he remembered some parts, such as the moment Domeric had his arms folded and said dimly, “I was planning on making my father proud.”

Ramsay laughed. The sound of the laugh had made Domeric’s face twist in revulsion, but Ramsay paid no mind to this. He wondered if the statement was meant to evoke feel sympathy of some kind. “Aye, I’m sure you are,” Ramsay said through a smirk, “But I’ve no plan to do that. In fact, it’d be easier for me to shove a knife through your belly and watch you bleed and cry until your skin loses color and you mess your pretty white pants with stinking, black shit.” He gritted his teeth in anticipation. “Do you think that will make your daddy proud?”

One corner of Domeric’s lips twitched downwards for half a second, and Ramsay almost thought that maybe he was angry, but there was no hate or intent of violence in his eyes, just calmness. “You must act like a man grown if you want our lord father to accept you.”

Ramsay raised an eyebrow, folding his arms across his wide chest. His smile dropped instantaneously. “My father has to accept me. I’m his son, and that’s the only qualification I need.” It worried Ramsay for half of a heartbeat that he did need more qualifications, but he tried not to think about that.

There must have been a thousand things Domeric wanted to say in that moment. Instead, he kept calm and spoke in a measured, composed tone. “You must call him Lord.” 

Unfortunately for Domeric, there was a slight assertion in his words that naturally made Ramsay combative. “Why?” he said through his teeth. He stared at his brother with narrowed eyes and saw how clean the other man was, and how calm he was, and how there was no malice or hate in his eyes at all. Bitterly, Ramsay wondered why, and the brief confusion made him forget what he wanted to stay, so instead he stammered, “He isn’t my lord,” even though he knew that Roose Bolton actually was his lord. He felt stupid, which was easy, because he looked stupid and was stupid. Still, he stood his ground and kept the scowl on his face.

This puzzled Domeric. “Actually, he is,” he said slowly, furrowing his brow. A smile moved across his face like drawn curtains and he raked a hand through his hair, black as knight and shining healthily. “You should address him properly, less you want to be punished.” His eyes glimmered for half of a second. “Although you do not act like a man grown and you will not be treated as one, you will certainly be punished as such.”

Ramsay said nothing after that. At the time, he did not know what his brother was talking about, so instead of replying, he stood with his lips twisted and kept his arms folded. Looking at his brother was growing tiresome. He couldn’t tell if it was hate or something else entirely that made him turn away, but nevertheless he averted his eyes from the slim, calm, unfaltering figure standing in front of him.

Domeric did not seem to be disturbed at all by the lack of eye contact, because he kept his eyes on Ramsay. Ramsay could feel the stare upon him as if it were as real and tangible as a wall he could push with his own two hands. The gaze had sensory components as well, strange and startling ones. It gave Ramsay the sensation that he had plunged his hands into snow for too long and his fingers were starting to lose feeling, except the sensation was happening all over his body, not just on his hands. It was a sensation Ramsay felt every time Domeric looked at him for too long, and sometimes Ramsay felt it still, years after his brother died. It was one of the prominent details Ramsay remembered of his brother, along with the swiftness with which Domeric could remove the pink scarves he wore and how cold Domeric’s fingers had been, as cold as if he were dead already.

The gaze made Ramsay’s heart race, and it only thumped harder when Domeric whispered, “Do you know what flaying is, brother?” as if no one in the world were allowed to hear, not even the grass or the wind or the gods in the heavens.

After a few moments of considering, Ramsay turned his eyes back to his brother. “I stripped the skin off of a cat once.” Ramsay never forgot that cat. It was orange and the way it screamed after Ramsay stuck it with a fork had been absolutely mesmerizing. He spared Domeric the details, but Domeric looked into his eyes in such a way that it seemed like he had heard them.

One corner of Domeric’s thin lips turned upwards for half of a second. “Human beings, brother. Not cats.” His tongue darted past his lips for an instant, and then it was gone. “You have Bolton blood. I can see it in your eyes.” He gestured to the farm with his pink-gloved hands in an overly-dramatic motion. The wind picked up right in that moment and the way it tossed his hair gave him a peculiarly offsetting righteous appearance. “You do not belong here, Ramsay. You are the son of Roose Bolton, the Lord of the Dreadfort.”

“A bastard son,” Ramsay said through a scowl. “Nothing more to him than a squirt of seed in my mother’s cunt.” His arms were folded across his chest again, and suddenly he couldn’t even stand to look at his brother any longer. He averted his eyes downwards and glimpsed Domeric’s hands. Ramsay dully wondered how delicately those hands could hold a knife, how deftly they could strip the skin from a screaming man, and instantly he realized that he was wrong. Domeric had likely killed many things, and not cats for fun or rabbits for dinner. Those ghost white eyes had seen death before, more times than Ramsay had.

Now Domeric’s white eyes were looking at Ramsay and into him and past him all at once. “You are more to him than that.” His thin lips turned upwards at one side into a slight smile. “I will make sure of it.”

It was Ramsay’s clearest memory of his brother. And it ended there, every time, no matter how hard he tried to remember more.

Years later, Ramsay still found himself wondering who killed Domeric and why. At the same time, Ramsay wondered if he himself had forgotten what actually happened - if he had been there, or if he had done it.

If Ramsay had killed Domeric, he was sure he would remember it. But he did not remember it, not entirely. He dreamed of it, but dreams could never be trusted, not ever, because sometimes in his dreams Ramsay had the surname of Bolton, or Domeric was still alive and well, or one hundred dogs lived in the Dreadfort, or winged shadowcats plagued the North and left no survivors – and none of those things were true. So when Ramsay dreamed of killing Domeric, he did not trust if the dreams were memories or nothing at all. He was left with his own mind, a wrath-clouded thing which he often could not trust.

Rumors had quickly spread, if they were rumors at all. Ramsay found that separating the truth from common belief was very difficult, especially when common belief, regarding him, was almost always the truth. After years of decay and sanding down, his mind lacked the capability to discern gossip from fact, for most often, they were one in the same. It was not easy to blame one person in particular for this, unless that person was Roose Bolton. In truth, the spread of rumors was the fault of the entire Northern population. Ramsay never trusted the smallfolk. Their blood was different than his.

Sometimes, in Ramsay’s dreams, the winged shadowcats had the same colored eyes as Domeric’s – then again, the color matched Ramsay’s eyes, and Lord Roose’s, and it also matched things like the moon and night fogs, so it probably meant nothing. Or it meant everything. 

Ramsay understood that forgetting his past was sometimes not just natural, but also necessary.

* * *

The smartest men all say that history repeats itself. Could it be true?

The hallway Domeric walked down lacked light. There was a single torch at the end of the hall, and from this Domeric could make his way around, but only barely. When he opened the door to what he’d believed to be his room, there was a torch lit in a hanger on the wall, and Domeric only briefly considered this strange before he was grabbed from behind.

Domeric was pressed against the stone wall with a clang of his armor. A blade shone silver against his neck, and Domeric opened his eyes to see the eyes of Ramsay Snow. 

Ramsay grinned. “Hello, brother,” he started. His grip was white-knuckled around the base of the knife. He was still new here, not yet a full moon into his new residence yet, but he’d never dared to pull a stunt like this until now.

As shocked as he was, Domeric was able to take a breath, calm himself, and speak in a level tone. “I thought this was my room. My apologies, Ramsay.” He was tired and prone to make mistakes. He hoped Ramsay would understand.

“Oh, I’m not upset,” he began condescendingly. “In fact, I’m delighted you wandered into my walls. I adore strays.” His voice was lined with thick malice. Ramsay took a moment to look into Domeric’s eyes, and for an instant, Snow’s smile fell. _He must have seen something_ , Domeric thought, and would have laughed if the blade were not so close to his throat.

Ramsay’s knife was cold as ice, but any violent intentions Ramsay had entered with seemed to have melted away. Gently smiling, Ramsay let his eyes fall closed and pressed his face into Domeric’s neck, taking a deep inhalation of his scent. Ramsay hummed, liking what he smelled. He breathed warm breath against Domeric’s skin, only to inhale again, his nose travelling up Domeric’s neck.

In an instant, Domeric swept Ramsay’s feet out from under him, and Ramsay fell on his back, grunting at the impact. The knife slid across the floor, out of reach. Domeric put a foot on Ramsay’s chest, trapping him to the ground.

Snow was too startled to say anything. Domeric pulled him up by the collar of his tunic and pressed him against the same wall he himself was previously pinned against. 

Domeric held Ramsay there forcefully, looking him in the eyes with a dampened curiosity. “Why did you do that?”

Ramsay squirmed, and did not speak. They stared into each other’s eyes for a long time. Ramsay’s eyes were eerily pale, just as their father’s. Ramsay’s dark and greasy hair had fallen over his eyes, and he appeared scared, but not for his life.

It was obvious he was not going to get an answer. Domeric did not necessarily need one, anyway. He smiled. 

Frowning, Ramsay tried to shift his body weight again. “Why are you smiling?”

“I don’t know,” Domeric admitted, shrugging. The two men were dangerously close. Ramsay smelled of hot and fresh blood, and his breath reeked from uncleanliness. Nonetheless, Domeric felt something interesting through Ramsay’s warmth, and smiled at him. “You’re my brother. I like you.” 

Ramsay flinched. His eyes were fixed on Domeric’s lips, whether they were moving or not.

The situation had escaped Domeric, and he was in the best mood he had been in weeks. “You should talk to people before deciding that you want to stab them,” he suggested. Ramsay really hadn’t talked much since arriving, so Domeric was going to capitalize off of this opportunity. “From now on, I’ll agree to do the same before I decide that the stories I’ve heard about you are the truth.”

“It is very likely that what you’ve heard is the truth,” Ramsay admitted. 

Domeric shrugged. “In that case, you must make for very interesting conversation. And I assume you want to hear of what I’ve done as well. Perhaps we can converse over a warm meal… or a cold body, whichever you prefer.”

Ramsay’s ice-colored eyes were melting. Their bodies were forced against each other’s, and they shared tension and warmth. “Tomorrow, then.” His cheeks were flushed.

“If it please you.” Domeric dropped him back on his feet. He took a few steps away from Ramsay and turned his back to him. “And, by the way… don’t try that again,” Domeric said simply. He was still smiling as he leered over his shoulder to find Ramsay staring at him.

Domeric lingered for a few moments before exiting. He left the burning torch in the room, and fell asleep warm.


	2. Diversion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ramsay on his knees before his Lord Father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, surprise. I've already gone over the 1K limit. Twice. This challenge is a hopeless case. I just hope this story isn't.
> 
> I tried not to make this sexual but it turned into [HEAVILY IMPLIED INCEST] so... sorry? (Not really that sorry!)

It was cold the evening Ramsay and the Bolton men took Winterfell from the Greyjoys, so Ramsay knew his father must have been home. 

It was always noticeably colder when he spoke to his father. If it was mere coincidence or if it had supernatural origins, Ramsay wasn’t certain. No one else seemed to notice besides him. He sometimes would consider that the frigidness of the weather was a fabrication, that his feelings of coldness were just fear. He’d never really felt fear before, never that he could remember. So it could easily be true.

When Ramsay walked in to the great hall with his red armor gleaming proudly and his pink cape fluttering behind him, Roose did not as much turn to glance at him. “Father,” he said with a grin, expecting a warm welcome, even if for a moment. But, again, it was not warm at all. 

Roose was quiet for a long while. Even his breathing was undetectable. He was seated in a chair beside the fireplace, facing the door Ramsay entered through, but his eyes were cast down into the flames, not directed at his son. “You should kneel every time you address me.” It was a command, not a suggestion. Ramsay could tell this even though the firmness of his father’s voice did not change.

The smile on Ramsay’s lips dropped instantly. Ramsay had been biting his own tongue to make sure he did not say something snarky on accident, but Roose still somehow knew even before Ramsay spoke that he was going to be insolent. “What if I refuse?” When the response came out of Ramsay’s mouth, he wasn’t even shocked with himself. Ramsay asked the question although he was not curious. He found it absurd. Domeric never had to kneel whenever he addressed his father.

At first, Roose did not answer this. He turned and stared at his son dully, with nothing behind his eyes. He was either thinking very hard or thinking about nothing at all, and Ramsay suddenly hated being looked at. His father’s examination felt uncomfortable, as if Roose were using his cold, stiff hands to touch every inch of his son, as if to better understand the abnormality standing before him. “Such audacity,” Lord Bolton remarked. “Approach me and kneel, bastard,” he commanded with disinterest. 

At once, Ramsay felt solid all the way through. He felt like he shared the same density and material as the black stone walls surrounding him, and he could hardly breathe. He approached his father so that he was standing directly in front of his chair, at an arm’s length away. And then he kneeled.

For a long time, Lord Bolton looked down on Ramsay, his pale eyes glancing up and down Ramsay in slow, steady time. Ramsay trembled with anger and could hardly bring himself to refrain from collapsing into a heap. Somehow he remained upon his knees, shaking. Perhaps this is what crying feels like, he regarded, and then, how can I tell?

Ramsay wondered if his father would even speak, and hoped ardently that he wouldn’t, and wished for silence even harder after he did. “To what House do you belong?” Roose asked after a long while. 

It was not a difficult question, and hopefully not a trick. “House Bolton,” Ramsay answered at once, flicking his eyes up to meet his father’s. He almost wondered it was the wrong answer, but it couldn’t have been.

Roose took a moment to look at Ramsay, but his eyes made it seem as if he were staring for an eternity. “Who gave you that cloak?” His question made is seem like he already knew the answer.

The pink cloak felt heavy upon his shoulders. Lord Bolton’s gaze was an added weight. Ramsay swallowed. “Just… the tailor. I had him make me one.” 

Lord Bolton looked nonchalant, as always. The next question rushed in like fluid. “Who is your liege lord?”

“You are.” Ramsay felt as if he were going to cry. “You are, father.”

Roose’s voice was almost a sigh. “The way you express your loyalty is an embarrassment.” When Ramsay was too startled to reply, Roose pressed on. “I know where you have been, I know who you have killed, I know who you have raped. I know everything you have done since I was away.” His voice only grew quieter, darker. “You are acting like a barbarian, like a man of the wild. Should I send you beyond the Wall and see how you fare amongst men and beasts?” Lord Bolton paused, but not to wait for an answer. “You are the heir to the Dreadfort. Or had you forgotten?”

“No,” Ramsay said quickly. “I haven’t.”

Lord Bolton did not even acknowledge what Ramsay had just said. “Did you burn Winterfell?”

The question caught Ramsay off-guard, but he answered it even before his mind could register the question. “Yes,” he said. “The boys and I burned the city. We killed all the Ironborn. We killed the citizens of Winterfell. Skinner is caring for Theon.” He blinked. “I wanted to make House Bolton look like heroes, and there are no witnesses to say otherwise. I thought the Stark king would owe a debt to us in that case.”

Lord Bolton sighed. His pale eyes shone with the same hue the moon outside his window, but Roose had far less of a consoling vibrancy. “Never make a decision without consulting me again,” he commanded. There was no hint of emotion in his voice. No anger or disappointment or pride, nothing at all. He turned his eyes away, a signal that the conversation was over. Over, without praise. Over, without a reward. 

Ramsay’s stomach shifted. He bared teeth. “What?” His head was spinning. “How could you fucking say that?” His gaze met Lord Bolton’s when Roose turned his eyes back. “I took Winterfell! All on my lonesome!”

Without warning, Lord Bolton grabbed Ramsay by the jaw. His hand was light, small, but strong. He titled Ramsay’s head upwards. Ramsay reached a hand up to Lord Bolton’s wrist and grabbed it gently. Roose did not fuss or struggle against the touch, just as Ramsay did not resist against his liege lord’s. They both just wanted to touch each other, and neither of them were sure how to do so without admitting it, verbally or not. Roose blinked slowly. “Stop your whining.” He leaned forward. He smelled like nothing at all, and his eyes showed just as little. “Do you want to rule the North some day?”

Wind passed through the windows chilled through them. His black hair tossed and turned, shading his eyes from Lord Bolton’s paler ones. “Aye,” he said, almost in a whisper. “I do.”

His father’s grip grew tighter. “Learn respect, then. Do as I say. Act like a man grown. Be more like your brother.” Ramsay did not dare to react. “This is a war, son,” he said quietly. “My war and your war. A war which, when won, will allow us to hold the Dreadfort and the North.” His voice was quiet, a whisper, but it shook Ramsay to his core. “The battles of iron and steel will come later. First, we must fight this war with dignity and patience.”

Ramsay did not have such a thing as patience. They both knew it. Domeric and Ramsay had the same blood, but they were none the same. Anyone who thought that was a fucking fool.

From then on, Ramsay knelt, but only when his father asked him to.


	3. Version

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ramsay and one of his boys - Damon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damon is my favorite ASOIAF character so of course there had to be a chapter dedicated to him.
> 
> I've been playing Dragon Age II for the past fifteen hours so I decided to take a break and write this, because if I don't write it now, I might never. Side note; I'm breaking from the ASOIAF fandom because I convinced myself I deserved to be part of something happier and more positive. Then I immediately joined the Dragon Age fandom. Talk about irony.

Name-calling was not just for children. Ramsay found over the years that names meant everything. Surnames and nicknames and the like; they could hurt as much as a knife to the belly, and they could make you bleed just as easily.

The bastard of Bolton. Everyone in the tower called him that. Not to his face, of course, but Ramsay still knew. He could hear it through the walls. He could hear a lot of things through the walls, actually, and with no one to talk to, silence amplified the whispers and the names and the jeers. Not that he cared to hear them. Not that he attended to the pain it brought him, or how that word twisted his bowels into bitter, burning knots. 

After his father sternly discouraged him from murdering anyone who called him bastard, Ramsay found his own solution. He assembled good company. Some of them were his father’s men or mercenaries or servant hirelings, but they were good company all the same. Ramsay’s own personal guard of men were good company to feast with and better company to kill with. They talked, and the silence disappeared, and so did the whispers. None of his guard called him bastard, but none of them call him anything nice, either. Except for Damon.

Ramsay always found it so fucking funny that some people gave Damon the second name of Dance-for-Me, and it was even funnier that Damon never questioned it – in fact, he admittedly liked it. Damon was by far Ramsay’s closest friend out of the decent-sized company of fighters, even though he was the most boring, and he was the most shiftless, and he was the prettiest. In fact, Damon was fucking beautiful, so that made it easy for Ramsay to hate him. He had tried on multiple occasion to make Damon less pretty, but even when he bled, Damon was a living masterpiece, portrait-perfect. And Damon smiled at everything. It was a stupid game they played. He smiled when Ramsay fucked his ass mercilessly rough, he smiled when Ramsay spanked him until he couldn’t walk straight, he even smiled when Ramsay slapped his face for no reason at all. 

Over time, Ramsay grew to find this quite tiresome. As the years progressed, Ramsay didn’t particularly enjoy fucking Damon anymore. He might still have enjoyed it if Damon would stop smiling; if he would whimper or scream or if his eyes filled up with tears instead of amusement. But even then, Ramsay could never discard Damon, never harm him enough to discourage him from staying the Dreadfort, not because Damon filled the air with bad jokes and drowned out the name-calling, but because he elected to calling Ramsay a few names of his own. Good names, not just Ramsay or m’lord or Bolton. There was one name he was especially fond of. Prince.

Aside from Damon, no one called Ramsay a prince, and if they did, it was an afterthought or it was out of fear or even mockery. Domeric had been the Prince of the Dreadfort, the only one that the servants and workers had ever known. So it must have seemed unnatural to them to call Ramsay by the name. But Damon called him prince since the start, with no irony or sarcasm in his voice. Ramsay adored it. He grew to crave the sound of the title in his ears. He would submit himself to Damon’s company for hours at a time just to hear that word even once. Prince. If Ramsay were any smarter, he might have allowed himself to be amused at the irony of it, but he wasn’t very smart so he just enjoyed the revelry and allowed himself short-term happiness. Anything was better than bastard.

This was one of those nights Ramsay spent alone time with Damon, selfishly. Damon must have known, but he didn’t mind. If he did, he was smart enough not to say anything about it and just do what Ramsay expected of him. He had always been one of the most obedient ones. Tactical, precise, and driven, but best of all, he was loyal. They spent a lot of time together. Ramsay casually fucked most of his friends, but Damon was the least adventurous so they mostly kept it platonic. This meant the time they spent alone was horrific, but not entirely useless, as Ramsay had grown to learn.

The most memorable night was one where they were eating together. They had been in the dining hall with Damon in the very early hours of the morning, eating dinner or perhaps breaking their fast, it was uncertain. The room was quiet, the sort of quiet that Ramsay hated – a dull quiet, with a lack of noise so absolute that the empty, heavy air clogged one’s ears and made his shoulders sag. And on this particular night, Damon asked a question. An awful one.

Damon’s worst quality was that he was intelligent for a low-born and planned out every word and action purposefully. The second-worst was that he was sentimental. Ramsay picked up on these things and took the initiative to use Damon’s snarky intelligence as a learning opportunity. It might come in handy, Ramsay thought, when he ruled the Dreadfort in the future. So he took the energy to analyze everything Damon did. Unfortunately, he was horrible at it.

On this particular night, Ramsay was in deep thought considering why Damon had invited him to eat alone. Usually Ramsay would not give anyone that sort of audience, but he figured this was something Damon was doing for a reason. Ramsay looked down at his plate and wondered this meant. He recalled someone saying that meals are an act of communion. He heard that somewhere. In a book, maybe. Maybe Damon himself had said it. It sounded like a senseless and sentimental thing to say, so likely it had been Damon. Ramsay wasn’t sure. He continued to ask himself what this meant.

Sacrifice was what first came to mind. A bleeding, rare steak. The sacrifice of flesh? Damon never cooked, of course; he was no food servant. The sacrifice of time? Damon sat across from him, shoulders slumped, eyes bright and blue and pretty. The sacrifice of solitude? Ramsay looked at Damon a little longer, watching with dull interest the sleepiness in his eyes and the slight tension in his muscles. And he wondered, fervently. He was putting more energy into it than he probably should. But he needed to know.

It would sometimes dawn upon Ramsay that things like this did not matter. Perhaps Damon was not smart enough to give all of his actions and words reason and meaning. Perhaps mysteriousness followed with his keen beauty. But of course that was not the case. Nothing was that easy.

It got worse when Damon asked the question. “Do you believe in love, Prince Ramsay?” If Damon was genuinely interested in what Ramsay had to say in response, he didn’t show it. He had known Ramsay long enough so that the answer was easily predictable. But if that was true, why would he ask?

Ramsay only got as far as saying, “That’s fucking absurd,” before Damon’s fingers gestured toward him in a lazy attempt to get him to stop before he started. Ramsay did shut up, but he wouldn’t have if he had a drink burning down his throat. So he grabbed the flagon of wine from the center of the table, swiftly filled his cup, and began to drink. Damon knew this routine as well. “It’s a fallacy, Damon,” Ramsay said, mumbling his words in an effort to keep the cup to his mouth as long as possible. “There’s no such thing. Stop fooling yourself.”

As if purposefully sparking a quiet rage in Ramsay, Damon proceeded to say nothing. He didn’t even sigh or roll his eyes or set his jaw in that annoyingly tragic way. He expected the answer, and Ramsay could almost go as far as saying that Damon’s answer might have been the same, could he find the words. But he said nothing. 

Damon didn’t give a reason to eating alone with him, and he didn’t give a reason for asking that fucking question. Damon was by far a better linguist than his partner, not to mention he was less cynical. Perhaps all of effort this was just to piss Ramsay off. Or perhaps it was simply a sentiment.

The bastard prince never came to fully understanding what that evening meant. All he grew to learn from Damon was that sentiment was not much of a bad thing, and names can bring people together better than blood ever could, and, most importantly, that Damon was an asshole. An asshole in mutual high regard. Company was all Ramsay asked of him, in the end, and Damon delivered that, always in the most exceptional of ways.


	4. Outversion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The love story between Ramsay and his Reek comes to an inevitable end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, fuck it. Let's get this over with.

It was difficult to tell when the hunt was best. The chase, the capture, and the kill were all of equal exhilaration. Each stage made Ramsay’s blood rush like rapids beneath his skin from cock to brain.

Reek had been running for days, or perhaps it had been weeks, but he was not running with his legs, he was running with his words and his eyes and his clenched jaw. He was lax and fearless and for the first time since Ramsay had claimed him, Reek did not resist. Not at all.

It was disheartening. Ramsay had been under the fanciful perception that Reek would always be the same. Reek, so perfect the way he was. It was a shame when that first began to fade, and as soon as the fear and efforts to resist vanished completely, Ramsay felt wounded. A piece of him was missing. Perhaps the desensitization wasn’t entirely Reek’s fault, but it was quite easy to blame him. Somehow, remarkably, it wasn’t as easy to kill him. 

This was the first time Ramsay hesitated. The first time he felt sorry. The blood beneath Ramsay’s skin was still and calm, as if it weren’t moving at all. He wanted to feel it turn like tidal waves and pulsate like his throbbing heart. So he went in for the kill.

"I do love you, Reek." The words came very easily to Ramsay at this point, like reflex. "You must know that. And I don’t like to hurt you, not always. But you have to stop making me.” He was straddling Reek’s chest, closing his knees around the other man’s ribcage to labor his breathing. 

Reek’s chest heaved with fear instead, for Ramsay’s hands were around his neck, silently threatening to squeeze.

"You… you do deserve this," Ramsay sighed. "You deserve to be hurt." He closed his eyes and shook his head. His lord father had been so disappointed to discover the prisoner in the state he was in. Ramsay might go as far to say that Roose was angry. When Roose Bolton was angry, someone needed to die. It was how the world balanced itself. If it was Reek who was displeasing, then it fell to Ramsay to eliminate this disturbance. "Why are you making me do this, Reek? When is this going to stop?" He grimaced. "I love you, Reek. I know you love me. Say it. Say you love me."

 _Love_? Reek felt his eyes flash with light, then darkness. He couldn't hear or see or feel, he could only remember. 

* * *

Summer was a blessing, or so Lord Balon used to say, even in times where sweat stuck Theon’s clothes to his back or when he refused to wear armor because it weighed him down and made his cheeks turn red. Thankfully Pyke was surrounded in endless waters and had a fishing bay up its middle that allowed for recreational swimming, else Theon would never leave the castle.

Winterfell was different. The walls were high and grey with stone, and there was no water outside the castle, not even a moat, and this made the summer hardly bearable. He had heard of a nearby river in the steep hills just a mile away to the south, but Lord Stark refused access, and the rapids were too fast to be safe to swim in.

But Theon didn’t particularly care what Lord Stark said. So he left at midday and there were no clouds to block the sun from burning down. He was trailed by two hunting dogs; he took care of them as part of his chores and decided they would enjoy a run. The two of them were loping along and sniffing each other and wagging their tails as if their natures were not consumed by predation. 

By the time they arrived at the bank of the river, Theon’s rose tunic was dark underneath his arms. And he stopped in his tracks and sneered.

Robb was there. He was seated in the grass up on a small hill, overlooking the steeper hills and the river alongside them. There was a stone tablet in his lap, a few pieces of paper, and a writing feather in his hand. Beside him was a small well of ink sitting in the grass which he dipped briefly and then returned to his writing. He noticed Theon was there but said nothing.

As the dogs went up to greet him and sniff him, Theon trudged up the hill and got his attention. “What are you doing here?” If he sounded annoyed, that was because he was.

For a second, Robb looked up at his pseudo-brother. He looked absolutely gorgeous in the sunlight, his blue eyes practically shining under his long lashes. His grey doublet was sticking to his back but he didn’t seem to mind the heat otherwise. “I’m writing you a poem,” he said, smiled, and returned to his work.

“A poem?” Theon felt his nose scrunch up. “I don’t want a poem.” In fact, he didn’t want anything from Robb, aside sex. But he definitely wasn’t going to ask for that. Not while Lord Stark was in house.

Robb arched an eyebrow at him, keeping his lips tight. “Can you read?”

Theon ran his tongue across his teeth. “Yes,” he said forcefully. Truthfully, he had only learned to read two years past, and he still was not very good at it. Theon tried to sneak a glance over Robb’s shoulder, but the younger man shifted forward and let out a laugh. Theon sighed. “Fine,” he admitted, “Write me a poem. Not that I want it.” The white stitching in Robb’s doublet made Theon unable to take his eyes off of the trueborn son. “There’s only one thing I want, and you know that.”

Smirking, the prince turned back to his paper and put quill to it. “I know,” he agreed. “And thank you. You just inspired my last line.” 

Theon decided not to ask, but he knew it must have been a compliment. Or an arousing description. He decided to wait and see.

* * *

What a beautiful thing to remember. Of all things, of all horrors in his life, that was a beautiful one. Beautiful.

Reek put his hands on Ramsay’s chest and tried to push off, but he was not nearly as strong as Ramsay. He said nothing, trying to keep his breath inside for as long as he could, for he knew his time was fleeting.

Ramsay licked his sharpest teeth. “Stop fighting back. This is what you deserve. Gods… Why? Why did you do this to me? How can I love you when you’re like this? Why did you make me this way? Gods, Reek. I should kill you.” There was no regret in his voice, no shakiness. Just a begrudging tone of duty. His eyes were dull, ice white, and sleepy. “You look beautiful this way, and, gods, I want to kill you.”

Reek was sorry, but he dared not move his tongue or breathe too loudly. Either would be a death sentence.

"Oh, Reek, please…" Ramsay’s voice turned weary. He was begging. "Stop doing this to me. Please stop hurting people, please stop hurting me." His fingers clenched and he began to squeeze. Not hard, not at first. "You deserve this, Reek. This is where you belong.” 

Reek struggled desperately. The fear was black in his eyes. The efforts to resist returned with a fervor. For him, it was too late.

“Stop fighting back.” Ramsay’s eyes had no anger in them, none at all. “I’m sorry I let this happen.” His nails were digging into Reek’s snow white skin, drawing blood ever slightly. “I’m sorry we’re the same.” The blood under Reek’s skin slowed, and then slowed some more, even as the spasms and gasps of his esophagus tremored violently beneath the pressure of Ramsay’s palms. “You deserve to die,” Ramsay whispered. “And so do I.”


End file.
